


We'll Make Our Own Ends Meet

by paradoxpangolin



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Autistic Entrapta, F/F, Found Family, Road Trips, adhd glimmer, diplomacy shenanigans, group chats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradoxpangolin/pseuds/paradoxpangolin
Summary: “If there was ever a time for an all-out charge,this is it,”Glimmer shouts. “We’ve been too weak in the past – but we’ve beaten them before! We can take back Netossa's kingdom andbeat them again!We’ll show them the might of thePrincess Alliance!!"The room falls silent. Glimmer’s voice echoes off the walls and the parapets, resounding, rebounding, like a general, like a real princess would."WHO’S WITH ME?!”she cries shrilly, voice cracking.The echoes die down, flowing past the waterfall and out into the open air. Glimmer swallows and clenches her fist, gazing around the table as strong and imposing as she can. And then –“Road triiiiiiip!” Perfuma sings out.Adora wakes up.She's never held a sword in her life.





	1. Where a Kingdom Falls and a Team Rises.

**Author's Note:**

> who doesn't love a good ol' revenge road trip?
> 
> in this fic, glimmer has adhd, and entrapta is autistic! (netossa has her own shit going on, but she doesn't want to talk about it.) i am one of these things, but no one is entirely sure which. i'm pulling from my own experiences with writing both of them, but if i mess up in their portrayal, please let me know so i can learn from my mistakes!!!!
> 
> (adora's not in this first chapter. but she wouldn't want you to worry about her.)

**New messages in **The Only Cool Princesses** _#srs_stuff_ **

**OG PRINCESS: @everyone** did you hear what happened in the lagoona islands???? where’s netossa????

**bowmosexual:** I think she’s out with Spinnerella? Like on a date? is everything okay????

**OG PRINCESS: @Net_Lesbian @Wind_Lesbian** hey we need to talk!!!!!!!!

**bowmosexual:** Glimmer!! Whats going on!!

**put me back in the sewers:** r they even like princesses or.

**bowmosexual:** Well Im not a princess but you let me in the alliance group chat so

**put me back in the sewers:** o thats a good pt

* * *

“Oh my god, come back here – “ Netossa vaults a bush in her path and makes a grab for Spinnerella’s foot, but she just dances away, giggling and holding her tracker pad above her head. “Come catch me if you caa-aannn!” she sings.

“YOU DELETE THAT,” Netossa screeches. “YOU DELETE THAT PICTURE RIGHT NOW.” She fumbles for a net and flings it wildly, missing Spin completely and wrapping full around a tree instead.

“You look so weird when you’re sneezing, though!” Spin laughs, floating up like fifteen feet and out of Netossa’s reach. “I’m gonna set it as my profile pic!”

Netossa yells and launches herself up a tree, scrambling through the branches, until one hits her in the face and she almost loses her balance. “No, you – get BACK down here, you – AWFUL girlfriend!” she shouts, spluttering around the faceful of leaves that’s decided it lives in her mouth now. Spin only rolls her eyes and waves her tracker pad back and forth, and Netossa’s not actually stupid enough to jump on her girlfriend from 25 feet up in a tree, so she shimmies back down and finds a pinecone to throw at her instead. 

It bounces off Spin’s stomach as she scrambles to catch it to throw it back, and the tracker pad ALMOST goes flying, but just when Netossa’s right under it Spin bonks the pinecone off her head and flies off. Netossa tears after the sound of her laughter, crashing through the undergrowth and jumping over fallen trees until the woods open up and they’re back at the pool. Spinnerella swoops out over the open air above the castle, reaching out to brush the waterfall and almost dropping her pad, then soars back up and skims her toes in the pool. Netossa grins, scrambling up onto the big rocks that make up the bank, zeroed in on Spin like a beast and its prey. She rocks back, gets a running start, and springs off a boulder, soaring through the air and gracefully tackling Spin into the water – or, that would happen, if the rock wasn’t _wet._

So what she does instead is slip and flail and fall like _all_ the way in the pool, like face-first, like soaking her hair _through,_ like water up her nose. She breaks the surface to the sound of Spin just _losing_ her mind, just doubled over in laughter, collapsed on the bank because she couldn’t stay afloat. Netossa snorts and swims over with long, powerful strokes, pulling herself out of the water next to Spin and wringing out her hair. “Yeah, ha ha, I’m hysterical, I _know.”_

“I’ll delete it if you’re seriously bothered by it,” Spin gasps out.

Netossa takes off her jacket and squeezes it out over Spin’s face, making her gasp and shriek. She twists it one last time as Spin scuttles backwards, then shakes it out and shrugs it back on. It’s from way back home in Lagoona so of course it’s waterproof, thick chillfur skin that insulates divers and dries out quick and warm. “I think I am,” she says after a second. Spin comes up and wordlessly sits beside her, knees drawn up. “I don’t…I mean it’d be fine if it was just us, but it’s _not_ just us anymore. I don’t want people that I don’t know…”

“Knowing you go cross-eyed when you sneeze?” Spin giggles.

“Yeah! And that you can see the whole ass _plume_ of saliva coming out of me!” Netossa snorts.

“That was disgusting!” Spin shrieks.

“I’m s’posed to be a _general!!”_ Netossa cackles. “C’mon, let’s go dry out over the cliffs.”

_“I’m_ not the one who needs to dry off,” Spinnerella points out smugly, but then Netossa plasters her whole body up against Spin’s back and clings until she is. 

“Hey, Toss,” says Spinnerella softly, once their legs are dangling off the cliff, growing warm in the orange Bright Moon sunset. The only sound is the whoosh of water rushing down over the cliff, but it’s still almost loud enough to drown her out. “Really proud of you for coming up here.”

“What’re you talking about?” Netossa asks. “I haven’t been scared of heights in like four years.”

“Yeah. I’m still proud of you for that, dummy,” Spin replies. Netossa pulls her close, and Spin doesn’t even make a noise about the wet. 

“Thanks for, uh,” says Netossa. Now it’s her turn to be almost too quiet to be heard over the falls. She’s not great at this. “Stickin’ so close to me. Through the big battle and everything.” It’s been a whole several weeks since then, but the castle’s been in such a flurry they’ve been too busy to get away and talk.

“Not like I was gonna let you face a Horde invasion on your own. Not to mention the giant influx of important people staying in our house.” Spinnerella takes one of Netossa’s hands, turns it over, her skin dry and crackly. “That’s…kind of what I wanted to talk about up here, actually. Before you sneezed really terribly. It’s nothing bad, don’t get scared! Just…how are you, I guess, how’re you holding up?”

“Well I only cried in the bathroom once this week,” grins Netossa, “so I say that’s a win.”

Spin gives her a look that means _that’s not funny right now._ “I still think that was on Glimmer, for blasting through the battle plan like that without slowing down to make sure everyone got it. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad strategist. I’m not gonna blame her, cause she’s just a kid, but it wasn’t your fault either.”

“I know. I’m tryin’ to know,” Netossa replies. “It just…it was that, but then how there was so many other princesses to watch me not get it, too…I think I’m still recovering from the Alliance reforming, honestly. I’m never gonna get used to having so many people around.”

“Oh god, yeah. I know people aren’t super your thing,” Spin sighs. “And especially not when we’ve had the castle basically to ourselves since we were sixteen.”

“I mean, Glimmer and Bow running around gettin’ in trouble and co-opting my strategy meetings is one thing. And I do love them. But it’s like…have you met Frosta?” Netossa snorts. “She looks at you like she’s thinkin’ about kicking your kneecaps in at any given moment.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. She probably is,” Spinnerella chides. “She’s what, eleven, right? That’s only three years younger than we were before the old Alliance fell apart.”

“Yeah, I know. Poor kid. I just…” Netossa makes a sort of helpless gesture. “It’s that, and how _active_ we been in combat lately. I’m…glad we got away together today. How are _you_ doing, though?”

“Oh, you know me. I just love getting out and making friends and kicking ass!” Spin says, kicking her feet against the edge of the cliff.

Netossa punches her, very gently, in the arm. “Cut it out. I know you’re nervous too.”

“Maybe.” Spin catches Netossa’s arm and whacks her in the face with it, and they tussle for a little before Netossa giggles and wrenches away. “But we were _incredible_ in the battle for Bright Moon,” Spinnerella continues. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t felt like that since I was fourteen. I feel like…this is important. This’ll be the time we get it right.”

“I hope so,” murmurs Netossa. The sunset breeze blows through her drying hair and down the back of her neck, and she shivers and leans her head on Spin’s shoulder, watching the shadows on their entwined hands. “I’m just…I’m so glad that you came with me, when we were sixteen. And that you never left.”

“I wouldn’t leave you,” says Spin seriously, dropping all pretense and turning to face her. “You know that, right? I _love you.”_

Netossa makes a bashful little sound kind of like _hhwwww_ and hides her face in Spin’s hair. Spin pulls her face up into a sweet, soft kiss, and Netossa smiles into it and wraps her arms all the way around her. Spinnerella scoots back so she can face Netossa more, cupping her face close, and her hand is warm on Netossa’s cool skin. Netossa wriggles herself up against Spin’s chest, her mouth deliciously warm, the cold tip of Netossa’s nose snuggling into Spin’s cheek like it belongs there. Forget the court, forget the Horde, forget her anxiety and all her rough edges. She just wants to do this forever.

So it’s a _great_ time for Glimmer to pop out of nowhere and scare the hell out of her.

Netossa’s eyes spring open at the princess-sized _thump_ right in front of her, and she gives a great big yell and falls backwards a little bit at Glimmer standing there directly in her face. She _doesn’t_ maybe almost go over the waterfall, definitely not, that’d be stupid, and even if she did it definitely didn’t take Spinnerella grabbing her arm and pulling her back up for her to right herself.

But Glimmer doesn’t even giggle. She just sits down beside them, without even a word, looking more like a princess than any of them. Netossa’s stomach drops.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” is what she says first, and that is _NOT_ a good way to start any kind of news. “We gotta talk.”

Netossa’s breath is coming short, her chest is clenching and twisted – she vaguely feels Spinnerella squeezing her hand, but most of the feeling is gone from her arms. “We _what now?”_

“It’s the Lagoona Islands. Your home,” says Glimmer. “They’ve…the castle’s fallen to an unexpected Horde attack.”

She can’t breathe. A single sob breaks out of her, and she keels forward and buries her head in her hands.

* * *

**New messages in **The Only Cool Princesses** _#srs_stuff_ **

**OG PRINCESS: @everyone** emergency strategy meeting in the war room in 10 minutes!!!! be there!!!!!

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** HEY glimmer what are we doing!!! Are we talking about my proposal for nuclear-based castle defenses because if SO I have some MORE IDEAS:

**OG PRINCESS:** entrapta…we’re talking about the lagoona islands 

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** The What?

**perfuma!! :D** : If you read the backlog you should be able to find out!!!

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** .

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** OH damn.

* * *

When Glimmer gets into the meeting room everyone’s already there, all arranged around the table, all harried and waiting, but somehow in their proper seats. (Well, Sea Hawk’s sitting on the table with his feet in Mermista’s lap, but like, mostly people are sitting.) Mom’s up front, standing with her wings all outstretched, trying to restore order, but she’s just another voice in the chaos that Glimmer can’t even make out. Glimmer hops over the arm of her chair and perches on her seat like a bird, toes pointed out. “Okay, so what do we _know?”_ she demands, fingers tapping agitatedly down her thighs.

And nobody listens to her, which is typical, and she’s a little mad about it, except Bow who breaks off his conversation with Entrapta about supplies and says, “Huh?”

“What?”

“Dude, I can’t hear you. There’s too many other people talking.” Behind him, Entrapta gives her a grimace and a little hair-wave, fingertips tapping together anxiously.

People do that. Glimmer shoves down a surge of nervous impatience and rocks back and forth in her chair. She’s never been great at listening to one thing when there’s other things also going on, and this isn’t an exception – Perfuma’s there, on her other side, she’s saying stuff like “how could this happen?” But before Glimmer gets an answer Frosta jumps in and says “the Horde wouldn’t attack without a stated reason,” and then Mermista grunts at Sea Hawk and shoves him off the table, and says “of _course_ they’re falling behind on their taxes, the Horde’s rogue runestone killed a _ton_ of the fish around the islands,” and Glimmer isn’t really looking at Netossa, because Netossa’s not saying anything.

Netossa’s been living in the castle, officially representing the Lagoona Islands in the rebellion, with her girlfriend since like two years after the old Alliance broke down. Glimmer almost grew up with her, kind of like the distant, prickly big sister she never had. And she doesn’t talk a lot but she always talks like she knows what she means, and Glimmer’s never seen her so _devastated._

“Sorry,” says Bow, breaking her out of her distraction. She shakes herself and offers him a small smile. He smiles back and asks, “So…what is it you’re not following?”

“Oh, pretty much everything, don’t worry about it,” Glimmer chirps. “I am just. _Not used_ to not being the yelling one at these meetings!!” Her voice goes up a little at the end, and Bow looks at her sideways, but not in the pitying way that she hates. “Okay, but make sure to dip out if you’re getting overwhelmed,” he says. “I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks, Bow.” She puts an arm around his shoulders, which is a little bit really awkward given how far apart their chairs are, but he leans into it anyway. “So,” he begins. “About an hour ago, we received an all-kingdoms distress signal from the Lagoona Cliff Castle…”

“I know _that!”_ Glimmer interrupts.

“Wait, really?”

“I was the one that _told you that!”_

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Anyway, while you were off getting Netossa and Spinnerella, your mom figured out a few more things. I helped her trace the signal back to the castle – it wasn’t a member of the royal family who put it out, and we’re getting intel that all of them have…disappeared? Taken into custody, we _think,_ but…”

“That… doesn’t make sense,” Glimmer mutters, wheels already turning in her head. “If kingdoms fall behind on taxes, the Horde…takes out of their winter supplies usually, right?”

“I _know!”_ explodes Spinnerella from the other side of the table, which Glimmer jumps a little at, because Spinnerella doesn’t explode a lot but maybe she’s doing the exploding for Netossa today, and she looks very red in the face. “It’s not justifiable! I mean, it’s the Horde, it wouldn’t be anyway, but – Lagoona’s been a _perfectly_ obedient client state up until now! The Horde _knows_ they never had the resources to fight back after the last Alliance broke, so they never did!”

“We’ve also received reports that they have raided and sacked the entire castle,” interjects Mom tiredly.

“See?! That’s _unprecedented!”_ Spinnerella shouts. 

“And right after the runestone incident too, when they’re still reeling from the tsunamis…” Perfuma worries. “Why is it _them_ that the Horde would decide to strike? They _can’t_ be the only ones unable to pay their taxes, and why on Etheria would the Horde waste all the resources of a full-frontal attack on a tiny fishing kingdom?”

“Uuughhhhhh, do they _need_ a reason?! It’s the _Hoooooooorde!”_ Mermista groans.

“Unfortunately, yes. Hordak is too smart to do all of this on an impulse,” muses Mom, her brows knit together in concentration, like when Glimmer was twelve and asking what would happen if Bright Moon didn’t give the Horde a quarter of their crops, like when no one talked to her about what was going on that whole harvest. Like when she was thirteen and asking Mom why they stopped eating lunch that winter, and why what they did eat never left her full enough. Bright Moon definitely _had_ fallen behind on its taxes before. This _wasn’t_ how the Horde reacted to that!!

“We’ve established that it doesn’t make sense from a logical standpoint,” says Bow. “It had to be the Lagoona Islands for a reason outside of taxes.” He wrinkles his eyebrows together. “It’s almost like they – “

And that’s when Glimmer gets hit with a bolt of lightning. “BOW! You’re a _genius!”_ she shrieks, springing up so fast she almost knocks over her chair. 

“Well. I mean, I, uh,” Bow mutters, but Glimmer cuts him off.

“It doesn’t MATTER that Lagoona fell behind on their taxes!” She leaps up onto the table, arms spread wide. “The Horde doesn’t do stuff like this on the regular because they don’t need to, and besides, each kingdom had a princess protecting it. But in the battle of Bright Moon, they saw we weren’t _afraid_ of leaving our own kingdoms undefended anymore!”

“So…they needed to _make_ us afraid again. Right?” asks Frosta, catching on quickly.

“They needed to show us what they could do to our kingdoms without a princess protecting them,” Mom adds, surreptitiously removing her hands from the Stomping Range. 

“EXACTLY! And who else are they gonna start with besides the kingdom whose princess has been away for the longest?!” Glimmer crows. “Uh, no, uh, no offense to you guys. Not saying you’re bad princesses or anything. Are you even – “

“No, it makes sense,” says Spinnerella, who has gone quiet and cold and very, very angry.

“Also probably helps that you guys are tiny and defenseless, making you a ludicrously easy target,” Entrapta pipes up. 

“Yeah, that too,” says Glimmer, a little bit thrown off her groove. She stomps on the table again and pumps a fist through the air. “Anyway! What I’m saying is! We need a show of force! We’re the Princess Alliance, and we _can’t let this stand!”_

_“Whoo!”_ Bow cheers, supportively.

“The new Alliance is MORE than capable of protecting its composite parts!” Glimmer cries, swept up in fury. “The Horde isn’t facing scared, scattered kingdoms anymore! They’re facing all their princesses consolidated into one single, unstoppable force! And not only are we as strong as the old Alliance, we’re gonna show them we’re _stronger,_ too!”

She strides to the head of the table, spinning around with a slam of her boot, feeling the whole thing vibrate underneath her. Behind her, Mom makes a small sound and leans back. “If there was ever a time for an all-out charge, _this is it,”_ Glimmer continues and ignores her. “We’ve been too weak in the past – but we’ve beaten them before! _We can beat them again!_ All of us, together! We’ll show them the might of the _Princess Alliance!!”_

“Dear, listen – you know this is too dangerous,” Mom starts up behind her, and Glimmer almost turns around and yells at her, _DON’T stop this now! DON’T_ – “If we still had – “

_“WHO’S WITH ME?!”_ Glimmer cries shrilly, voice cracking.

The room falls silent. Glimmer’s voice echoes off the walls and the parapets, resounding, rebounding, _like a general, like a real princess would._

Netossa’s not angry-crying anymore. She’s angry-smiling, and the tear streaks shining on her face look as dangerous as war paint. Entrapta takes her hands off her ears, tilting her head, looking at Glimmer like the beginnings of a breakthrough. Glimmer risks a glance behind her and there’s Mom, still and rock-solid, mouth just slightly parted. 

The echoes die down, flowing past the waterfall and out into the open air. Glimmer swallows and clenches her fist, gazing around the table as strong and imposing as she can. And then – 

_“Road triiiiiiip!”_ Perfuma sings out.

* * *

**New messages in **The Only Cool Princesses** _#general_ **

**perfuma!! :D:** So!! We’re really doing this!!!

**perfuma!! :D:** Official Princess Alliance mission!! Take two!!!!!!

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** what happened to take one??

**put me back in the sewers:** you died

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** OH yeah

**entraptaaaaaaaaaaa:** Is that what we’re counting as a failed take? Bc what I learned about the black garnet and the planet’s runestone grid made it pretty worth it I think even though I didn’t get back here to tell everyone what I learned until later

**entraptaaaaaaaaaa:** Oh never mind I just remembered the massive environmental destruction SORRY HAHAHA

**Princess Frosta:** When are we leaving, **@OG_PRINCESS?**

**Net Lesbian:** tomorrow morning

* * *

The unfortunate thing about metal is that it’s really _heavy,_ which seems like a design flaw, until you think about how it's partially _because_ it’s heavy that it can also do stuff like conduct electricity, that make it really conducive to being used in First Ones technology, although not all their technology is made of metal, but a lot of it is, and you can’t fit a whole lot in a backpack before you have to worry about breaking your back or something. Or posture? When she was little Mombot always was after her about posture. What is posture anyway? Is it a morphological certainty or a societal construct? Is it made up? It’s probably made up. Entrapta makes a mental note to look at other people’s “posture” on this trip and slides the wrench into her backpack. It clangs, and she winces, and she also makes a mental note to braid some of her tools into her hair, if she remembers.

And she doesn’t remember, usually, and she’s all scattery and light so she _probably_ won’t remember today either! But she’s humming, or, not really humming, she’s making little rumbling tones in the back of her throat as she packs, _hmmm mmm mmmmm,_ sliding up and down the scale. That means she’s happy, and also means she’s nervous, and sometimes means she’s overwhelmed, but not right now. She was overwhelmed yesterday when Princess Glimmer was yelling, yeah, okay, and she was rumbling then, but it felt like top-of-the-world rumbling, like breakthrough rumbling, spinning in circles and shrieking with delight. _Show of force! All of us together! The might of the PRINCESS ALLIANCE!!!_

So she slides her tracker pad, still recovering from its latest update, into her bag next to the hack marbles and rolling grenades and spider droids and waveform communicators and uncooked pasta, letting everything clatter against each other as it settles. She giggles a little before she can stop herself, twirling the tips of her ponytails in anticipation. It might be how she hasn’t slept in a while, because that’s a thing she forgets to do, but the sight of all these new little nasties just _floods_ her with excitement!

She’s been inventing _nonstop!!!_ since she got back, of course, she was inventing before she got back too, that’s when she came up with the tracker pad “group chat” idea – pads like Bow’s and her electronic map could _call,_ sure, through an incredibly ingenious First Ones spontaneous communication channel, but once she figured out how to make it send text too the Alliance had a _whole new strategic advantage!!_ And also a reason to keep her around.

Because…well, she doesn’t like remembering how this part of the story happened, because it’s easier to think about how she’s back with the Alliance now. But her brain’s turning back towards it now, like it does, unstoppably and inevitably, like looking into a light too bright for your eyes. Her hopping outside the Fright Zone, just for a sec, just to sneak over and check out the planet hack’s effects on the nearby Plumeria’s Heart-Blossom – probably nothing too bad, right? cause whatever happened in Bright Moon equalized the effects of the Garnet, before she could get the _entire_ runestone grid under control and making sense. Which was definitely a good thing, now that she thinks about it! But then what she saw there, it wasn’t the Heart-Blossom (although she did see that later, ran through with rot and sickly tinges of red and green)…

It was the _statue,_ is what she saw.

And she saw the trees twisted and ripped from the ground, and she saw the fields of vegetables and the orchards of fruit uprooted and scattered, and she saw Princess Perfuma, _Perfuma_ seeing her standing out in the open like a dummy and practically passing out from the shock. She saw Perfuma rushing over to her, Perfuma who pulled her away from Emily and distracted her from her rewiring and didn’t let her follow after the little buggy-bots, _Perfuma_ who Entrapta’d almost decided was the one who chose to abandon her in the first place. And Entrapta’s way more good with robots and stuff than people, but even she knows what it means when someone is _crying._

Entrapta swallows and maybe throws the toothbrush into her backpack a little harder than she needs to. She…the thing is, she _wants_ to go back to the Black Garnet. She _wants_ to not think of everything that happened after, the crying and hugging and the deep well of shame that opened up inside her as she saw more and more of what her breakthrough had cost. Her brain wants her to go back to the Fright Zone, to Scorpia and Catra and Emily, to dive back into the planet’s secrets and just lose herself down there. It wants to retreat back into that smoothing, soothing joy, where she doesn’t have to think like a person about person things, where she can let herself be wrapped around with her research and forget about the outside world. She’s used to that hyperfocused blindness. It feels like it’s what her brain was built for.

But sometimes, your brain isn’t the most important thing you have to pay attention to. Not when people you _like,_ and people you _want to like you,_ need your help. That’s the new rule, the one she’d made once she got home. Help the Alliance. She _belongs_ here, because the planet needs her, and so do her friends. And it’s a rule she’s going to keep. This will never happen again.

And anyway!! They’re going into the WOODS!!! Okay, okay, okay, _calm down!!_ Entrapta zips up her backpack, shaking it a little bit so that everything settles, insides buzzing as she goes over her rules for today. _I have to remember not to look too excited!!! Because this is a rescue mission! Addition: unless someone else is, then it’s probably okay. In general: mimic, anticipate, follow the leader (Princess Glimmer, Perfuma, Bow, Princess Netossa)…this is going to be SO FUN!!_

She’s almost done packing, chewing on a chunk of hair as she looks around the room for anything else she can fit, when someone really short comes up behind her and almost makes her swallow it.

“Sorry,” says the short someone, withdrawing her hand quickly as Entrapta spins around. “I knocked first because I wasn’t sure if I was welcome, but you didn’t hear me – “

“Sorry!! Of course!!” Entrapta yells, thrusting out a chunk of hair. The someone takes it lightly and shakes it, and Entrapta yanks it back. “I don’t believe we’ve officially met, I’m Princess Entrapta, you’re…the _Fractal Flake!_ Oh, uh, you’re, uh – “

“Princess Frosta. Of the Kingdom of Snows,” says Princess Frosta, of the Kingdom of Snows. (Entrapta is hideously bad with both names and faces.) “I hosted the All-Princess Ball this year.”

Entrapta brightens at that. “Right, right, the social experiment! So complex, and so admirably put together.” She bites her tongue a little bit at that, because people don’t like it when she calls their huge events social experiments, but Princess Frosta doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she gives Entrapta a hesitant smile. “Come on,” says the Princess. “I volunteered to come find you. Princess Glimmer says it’s almost time to go.”

“Yes! Great! _Right_ behind you!” Entrapta cheers, bounding ahead of Princess Frosta (oops) and out into the corridor. She half-jogs behind her to catch up, then walks a couple steps in front, almost like a guard or like Emily used to. Entrapta hesitantly opens the _Relationships_ section in her brain and files Princess Frosta in under _New Friend?,_ alongside the companion folders of _Probably Still Friend_ (Scorpia, Catra) and _Talks About Tech With Me (Bow, Adora)._

Entrapta chatters as she adjusts her backpack on her shoulders and follows Princess Frosta out of the castle, asking questions about the Flake that Princess Frosta gives thorough, rote answers to. Yes, the Flake is as old as the other runestones, but it gradually changes shape through the continual dripping of water on it from the stalactites above – yes, its core is pure glacial ice, left over from the time of the First Ones. Oh man, oh man, oh boy, oh yes. A whole _voyage,_ with the _whole Alliance_ – Entrapta jumps across the floating stones down to the beginning of the forest, remembers too late to ask if Frosta wants any help, then has to duck as Frosta glares at her outstretched hair and soars over her head. Entrapta giggles and bounds after her, her tools clacking and clashing in her backpack. 

The woods – the Whispering Woods, mostly thought of as natural enough to be a byproduct of Bright Moon’s magic, but Entrapta’s a hardcore subscriber to the more fringe First Ones creation theory, cause seriously _how does that much tech and interference end up in one little patch of boring trees????,_ the academic community doesn’t want to listen to her but the thing is she’s _right,_ those Woods – they loom dark and First Ones-y over her as she follows Frosta down. Everyone’s waiting for them, down where the trees grow so high they arch overhead and block out the morning sunlight. Entrapta bounces giddily on her toes and races over by Perfuma, the magical interference of the woods already frizzying up her hair. She’s grinning, she realizes half a second too late, and rocking back and forth and also her fingers are twirling through her hair, and she catches herself but not before Perfuma grins back at her and does a little dance. Entrapta giggles again, and Mermista and Frosta glare at them, and Queen Angella has come to see them off and everyone is still arguing about last-minute logistics, but the field of magic sizzles through her, and she doesn’t care, and this is going to be the best trip of her life. Entrapta pulls out her recorder, entranced.

“Whispering Woods log, day one.”


	2. Where Leaders Reconcile and a Latch-Ditch Hope Succeeds.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **OG PRINCESS:** IM NOT THE ONE WHOS GOOD AT PLANNING THINGS OKAY!!
> 
> **OG PRINCESS:** WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING YET!! WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT WHEN WE GET THERE!!! ITLL BE F I N E!!!
> 
> **perfuma!! :D:** Glimmer’s right, we just don’t know enough yet! don’t worry!!
> 
> **put me back in the sewers:** lmao

**New messages in **The Only Cool Princesses** _#general_ **

**Princess Frosta:** I received the same debriefing as everyone else at the beginning of our mission, but it strikes me that I should have asked for some clarification before now.

**Princess Frosta: @OG_Princess,** we are to follow the Singing River from Bright Moon down to the ocean, where we will meet with Princess Mermista’s contact, who will take us to the Lagoona Islands on his ship. 

**Princess Frosta:** But what is our plan from there? How heavily guarded is the castle? Is it easier to approach by land or sea? How will we be sure the Horde does not know we are coming?

**bowmosexual:** UhhHhhhhhHHh

**put me back in the sewers:** dude thats all we got

**Princess Frosta:** …Oh.

**Princess Frosta: @OG_PRINCESS** ?

**OG PRINCESS:** IM NOT THE ONE WHOS GOOD AT PLANNING THINGS OKAY!!

**OG PRINCESS:** WE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING YET!! WE’LL FIGURE IT OUT WHEN WE GET THERE!!! ITLL BE F I N E!!!

**perfuma!! :D:** Glimmer’s right, we just don’t know enough yet! don’t worry!!

**put me back in the sewers:** lmao

* * *

The first day of their travels is all silent and _boring,_ if Glimmer’s being honest, all of them like _oh no we have to be sophisticated princesses or else no one will think we’re taking this seriously,_ like being sophisticated is gonna get them to Lagoona faster. Which, Bow math’d it out, it’s _not,_ cause they’re only gonna have a significantly shorter traveling time if they like run the whole way. And, _no._ But the second day is better. Because that’s the day someone, she thinks either Perfuma or Bow by how hard they tried to look innocent when she turned around, picked up a long, half-rotted stick from the ground while they were walking and stuck her in the back – and then of course that meant _war._

So now of course Glimmer’s got a stick of her own, longer than the first one and just a bit sturdier, knees bent and jabbing it at Perfuma in a fake swordfighting pose. Perfuma grins and clashes her stick with Glimmer’s, and Glimmer pulls back and goes for a full-frontal downward slash, but Perfuma leaps back and deflects it effortlessly. She skids in the mud with the force of the parry, losing her balance, and Glimmer swings to knock the stick out of her hand, but then something hard and wet smacks her in the back of the head, and she spins around with a yell to stab at Bow. He stumbles back, beaming, right into Mermista walking behind them, who groans and pushes him away. 

The woods are recovering _incredibly_ quickly, buzzes Glimmer, as she whacks Bow’s stick hard enough to break it, but there’s still a ton of dead vegetation that hasn’t rotted away yet, and that makes it smell like heavy rain and earth even though the sun is shining. It makes _sense,_ she thinks, from the like eight things she knows about the Whispering Woods – how it’s different from recovering from a wildfire, like the big one five years ago that started from a lightning strike super close to Bow’s house, how even though they’re not suited for a cold climate these trees are incredibly hardy and so not totally dead. But then Bow takes advantage of her distraction and brings his branch down on her head with a _crack,_ and she shrieks and flails after him, breaking her stick magnificently across his armor. He snickers, stepping back, but trips on one of Perfuma’s vines and lands flat on his ass. 

“Ha! Ha- _ha!”_ yells Perfuma, shoving the end of her stick in his face.

“Hey, no fair!” Bow says, grabbing the stick and tugging it hard. Perfuma shrieks and lands in the mud.

Glimmer hops up and brushes herself off, which is mostly a cursory motion at this point, jogging backwards for a few steps to keep an eye on those two. She looks around behind them to the rest of the squad, when she’s sure she can trust Bow and Perfuma not to sneak attack her – Entrapta, fascinated with something Glimmer can’t see, chatters into her recorder, as Mermista and Frosta walk beside her in half-listening silence. Perfuma springs up and splatters mud on Bow’s leggings, as Spinnerella picks her way carefully around the puddles, and all the way in the back – 

Glimmer meets Netossa’s _glare,_ just for a second, before Netossa drops her gaze with cheeks darkening. But Glimmer’s stomach lurches.

She lets go of what remains of her stick and falls back to where Netossa’s plodding beside Spinnerella, guilty and embarrassed, wiping the wet, barky stick remnants off on her shorts. She feels _awful._ Like that look punched her right in the gut. It’s _Netossa’s_ kingdom they’re coming to storm, _her_ family they gotta be at the absolute top of their game to rescue, and of _course_ she’s gonna be taking this _seriously,_ not like some childish field trip through the woods that it’s okay to have _stick fights_ during! _Rrrrrrrgh!!!_ Cause Glimmer knows how she gets _distracted,_ runs off into dangerous situations and follows her first impulses without thinking, but this is new cause it isn’t even _dangerous_ – it’s just, socially _bad!_ She’s gotta be more grounded if she wants to get to the point of being actual friends with Netossa, which’ll probably be a necessity for this mission to go smoothly, and all she’s done so far is _screw stuff up!!_

Netossa’s eyes open wide as Glimmer falls into step beside her, and she bites on her lip, looking down to the side. Spinnerella smiles bracingly at Glimmer and puts an arm around Netossa, and Netossa leans into her side. 

“Hey, I’m…sorry about. That,” Glimmer starts, tongue feeling sticky and awkward and determined to find out _some_ way or other to embarrass her. “I just…walking gets so, y’know! So _boring!”_ She cringes internally, as Netossa does something that might be a glower but also might be Glimmer projecting. But Spinnerella laughs softly, squeezing Netossa’s arm. “Tell me about it,” she says, and Netossa glances up at her. “The only reason this one’s as good a markswoman as she is is a whole lot of target practice on me during old Alliance missions.”

“Hey – that is _not_ – hold _up!!”_ Netossa squeaks, and Glimmer snorts with surprise. “Shut up!!” she exclaims. “You shut up too! I was the third best shot in the whole damn _kingdom_ before I even _met_ you!”

_“That_ much is true,” says Spinnerella with an exaggeratedly patient tone. “But what was it that bumped you up to number one, sweetheart?” 

“Definitely your ass always flyin’ off distracted while I stayed on the ground trying to be a capable princess,” Netossa laughs.

Glimmer finds that she’s grinning, unexpectedly. She wasn’t old enough or involved enough to remember much about the old Alliance at all, and somehow she’s just now realizing that these two would have been in the prime Weirdo Teenager age range at that point. Which isn’t a thought she has about them very much, and it makes her feel a bit better about probably still being in the prime Weirdo Teenager age range herself. “What, you’re telling me you guys _weren’t_ always the super serious role models everyone thinks you are now?”

“Oh, god. People think that?” Netossa mutters. 

Spinnerella snorts. “I _think_ you might be the only one, Glimmer.”

“Wait, _you_ think I’m a _role model?!”_ Netossa squeaks.

“Well, yeah? You’re, like, 26!” Glimmer squeaks back.

“That don’t mean I know what I’m _doing!!”_

“I don’t _either!!”_

Spinnerella doubles over cackling, shoving Netossa in the shoulder so hard she almost stumbles off Glimmer. “See? You guys are perfect for this mission.”

Which brings the whole weird camaraderie thing to a _screeching_ halt. Netossa’s face falls. She pulls all the way back into herself, arms coming up to hug her elbows. 

“Ohh. Guess we’re, uh,” says Glimmer, awkwardly, trying to salvage this, trying to salvage _something._ “Yeah. We’re kind of the co-leaders of…this whole, _thing,_ huh?” 

“Uh,” says Netossa, awkwardly, unable to salvage anything. “Yeah. Seems that way.”

“Sooooooo…you…went over…the plan. With my mom? Before we left?” offers Glimmer, awkwardly.

“Uh. Yeah. We, we follow the river to the sea…we meet up with, uh, Princess Mermista’s guy, who takes us to Lagoona.” Netossa squeezes the fabric of her jacket until her knuckles go light brown.

“Take names, kick ass,” Glimmer finishes, awkwardly.

“Oh, jeez,” says Spinnerella, awkwardly. “This is my fault, isn’t it.”

Glimmer sighs. She’s only good at this kind of _emotions thing_ through either hugging people or crying, and she can’t do either one of those now, probably. But…she’s gotta try.

“I…I know,” she starts, twisting her hands together. “How you feel. I think. A, a little?”

Netossa looks up a little bit, grip on her coat loosening.

Glimmer’s mouth is _way_ dry. She coughs before going on. “You’re trying to be… _really_ strong. Even with your whole family in danger,” she says. “And maybe, you’re trying to be strong by yourself. But. You’re not by yourself. I felt like I was by myself a lot when…when my dad died, and, and like the world couldn’t possibly keep going after it. But. It does. It will.” Glimmer takes a deep breath and lets it out, her words half to Netossa and half to herself. “We’re gonna make sure of that.”

Netossa says nothing. Glimmer risks a glance over and she’s staring at the path in front of them, steps measured and careful, chewing on the inside of her mouth.

But then she looks back at Glimmer and smiles, small and genuine. “Thank you,” she replies softly. “So much. Really. I kind of…I guess I kind of forget I’m not the only one who got so, so messed up by the fall of the old Alliance?” She makes a nervous little self-deprecating giggle.

“But it’s completely reasonable you’d take everything that’s happening _now_ this hard!” says Glimmer. “Your whole _kingdom_ is getting its ass kicked! That would suck for _anyone!_ Uh, sorry.”

“Yeah,” Netossa replies, and she hasn’t stopped that sad, genuine smile, so Glimmer guesses she’s done something right. “You…you too.”

“Yeah,” Glimmer agrees stiffly. Then she shakes herself and bounces on her toes a little, throwing a punch into the air. “We’re gonna hit those nightmares in the _face!”_

She runs back up to Bow before Netossa can respond, cheeks burning and palms sweaty. But behind her she can hear Netossa and Spinnerella’s surprised, relieved laughter, and a big smile starts growing on her face too.

* * *

“Everybody knows the Whispering Woods are a largely self-contained environment, food chain and everything completely unique and self-sufficient, old and unchanging and weird as hell for as far back in history as anyone remembers” - it’s the only place on Etheria that’s got the whole _constantly shifting landscape_ thing going on, except maybe the Crimson Wastes, which are not really on Entrapta’s bucket list on account of like everyone who goes there dies, or not yet anyway. “Above my head, bird-looking things with great big tentacles chatter and squeal, and even the tiniest bug looks all fleshy or feathery or _weird!”_ She had to give her recorder to her hair, a while ago, to free up her hands for pumping back and forth in front of her chest, because all the flora and all the fauna and all of everything in between is just _amazing, incomprehensible,_ forever, and she’s In _Love!!_

_In Love_ here means not exactly _excited,_ not exactly filled up to the top and fit to burst with bubbles, but more like quietly, regulatorily intent – it’s the real good flow when she’s winning a fight about First Ones tech on the scientific forums, when she’s carefully disassembling a robot to make it compatible with a new discovery. There aren’t any records of a time when the Whispering Woods didn’t exist, which is a pretty good sign that it’s been there since the First Ones – they kind of jumpstarted modern history, Entrapta thinks, or at least the sum total of all history Entrapta knows or cares about. But even _that’s_ not generally accepted as a good supporting point for the First One creationist theory, because everyone knows magic existed on Etheria before the First Ones, so it totally could have arisen from Bright Moon’s natural magic terrain – only, it _can’t!_ Not when it’s so different from the rest of Bright Moon, geographically and zoologically and magicologically, not when it’s so stuffed full of First Ones tech and other old junk!! And, just see if she’s wrong, she’s gonna prove that theory before they even get to the sea! Just see if she’s wrong!!

And then she walks into a tree, because her eyes were maybe closed a little bit with excitement, just like _whack_ just like right on the noggin, and she stops walking because she walked into a tree and opens her eyes. She drifted a little bit off from the group while she was being excited, she notices, and flounces back, sidling up next to Mermista. “Hi. Question. Does the Pearl influence the surrounding environment at all? Make it more, magical, or something?”

“Huh? Oh, hey, it’s you,” says Mermista. “Uhhhh. Hell if I know.”

“Not even a little bit??”

“I mean, probably? We do have, like…really doggy sharks around the palace. Like they’ll do what you say and like rub on you and stuff.” Mermista sighs. “Kinda miss ‘em.”

_“Faaaascinating!”_ So an ordinary runestone alone _probably_ wouldn’t have _this_ much impact over such a large area! Entrapta makes a note of it in her recorder and dances off.

Because it’s clear as absolutely anything else, the Whispering Woods are an _intensely_ magical place! There’s something eye-catching everywhere she looks, and she keeps wanting to just spin around as she’s walking, so she can see as close as possible to 360 degrees at once. Little deerlike insects click their segmented legs as they race away from the edges of her vision, and the reflections in the ice sometimes take a second more to move than their real-life counterparts. There’s even _new growth_ around some of the ice, something Entrapta’s _NEVER_ seen before – not even in the farthest reaches of the Kingdom of Snows, which is a place she went exactly once, well, twice if you count the ball, but, only once if you count times where she almost got frostbite and died and _also_ didn’t even find any First Ones tech. Some tiny, rodenty horse thing races across the path in front of her, and she bounces with delight, tiptoeing off after it.

The tiny rodenty horse thing gets something like three feet off the path before something _heavy_ drops down from the tree, a long-beaked, brilliantly purple monkey, and snatches it up with a bloody _snap._ Entrapta freezes, entranced, as the thing throws the rodent horse in the air and swallows it whole. A giggle bubbles up inside her. This. Is _so. COOL!!!!!_

“Whispering Woods log day two!!” she yells, probably too loudly, into her recorder, even though she’s said it already because she’s _in!_ the Whispering _Woods!_ and that deserves repeating, “day two, day two, day twoooo-hoo! Ha- _ha!”_ It scares the monkey thing off, and she charges after it, pushing aside the undergrowth’s wiry stems and broad leaves, drinking in their heady organic scents. 

She doesn’t get very far before a giant puddle she just jumped rears up in its place and splashes the whole entire back of her legs, making her jump in surprise and whirl around and almost trip over a tree branch and _die._ Mermista stands a few feet behind her, hand half-raised, face blank as ever. 

“Hey. ‘Trapta. We’re over here.”

Entrapta cringes, twisting her ponytails around each other. _“Sorry!”_ she calls, _probably_ too loud again, still holding onto the branches of this thicket she just pushed aside. She breaks off the piece she’s holding, just to like keep and look at, and starts to pick her way back through the knee-high ferns and stuff. “Sorry,” she repeats once she’s standing in front of Mermista, feeling embarrassed and also very _short._

Mermista shrugs and gives her a small smile. “S’fine. Try not to lag behind.” 

“I _won’t!”_ she calls up to Mermista, who gives her a silent thumbs up, and Frosta, who glances back. No one saw besides her, right? No one saw her running off, not taking this seriously?? Entrapta jogs up to walk between the two of them and examines the thingy whatever she’s got in her hand, which, oh my god, there’s _crystals_ in this, she thinks??? _Like, not ice crystals????_

“Sorry I splashed you. I tried calling but you didn’t hear me,” says Mermista, which Entrapta registers as a good cool friend thing to say before it goes right back out of her head. The crystal structures aren’t like those formed in caves or from mineral deposits, they’re too angular, closer to _data crystals,_ she thinks – 

“Do you have anything like this in the Kingdom of Snows?” Entrapta blurts, brandishing the stick in Frosta’s face. Frosta blinks and pushes the tip of the stick away with an index finger, and says “I don’t believe so,” but that’s not a bad thing, because the next thing she says is, “what is it?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” asks Mermista, peering half-interested over Entrapta’s shoulder. “Tell me about it?”

“Well I don’t know _much!”_ Entrapta hoots, turning the stick over in her hand. “But! If my initial observations are correct, and these crystals are structurally more similar to ancient data crystals than the naturally occurring variety, it implies a high degree of connection between…”

* * *

There is. _So_ much mud.

Netossa is. _So_ muddy. The ground is splattered with puddles as far as she can see, shiny and wide and brackish, and the path itself isn’t much better. Especially not when her and Spin are all the way at the back of the party, after everyone’s already squished up the ground before them, leaving it all pitted and sloppy with footprints. She steps in a particularly deep hole, loses her balance trying to pull her foot out, and definitely doesn’t need Spin to help pull her free with a very moist noise.

The trees are lined with melting ice, glistening off their branches and running through the path like streams, and she guesses it’s beautiful, but it’s also so _muddy._ It’s the kind of muddy that comes after a first, fast thaw, the ground still frozen beneath them, most of the puddles made of standing water and dripping ice that don’t become _real_ mud until something with feet splashes through them. But she guesses this place must be a popular deer trail or something too, because there’s such a good amount of _real_ mud here there’s no way they’re the first. Her boots are made for climbing the cliff face, finding the little niches in the rock and wedging her toes in place, but at least they keep her feet dry and clean.

“I _like_ Glimmer,” she contemplates, half to herself and half to Spin. She’d been in kind of a shitty mood before Glimmer had fallen back to talk to them, which was, yes, _partially_ because Glimmer had been running around up there like a little kid. But only partially. And rationally, she knows it’s not like Glimmer was jeopardizing the mission or anything. Bow math’d it out, after all. “She’s capable as all hell. Feel like she’d have this under control even if I wasn’t here.”

“Maybe,” Spin shrugs, dismissive. “But d’you think she’d _want_ that? You heard what she said!” She grins, nudging Netossa in the shoulder. “She looks up to you! How adorable is _that!”_

“It’s not adorable! What if I screw her up forever!!” Netossa hisses, grabbing Spinnerella’s arm and shaking it. “What if she does somethin’ stupid that I told her to do and then she _dies!!!”_

“I feel like if the Princess Glimmer is going to do something stupid and die, it’s gonna be entirely on her own terms,” responds Spinnerella, rationally. Up ahead of them, Glimmer yells and teleports onto Perfuma’s shoulders.

Netossa shrugs, suppressing a snort. “That’s fair. D’you think I…” She swallows, remembering how Glimmer’s face just _dropped_ the second she looked back to them. “You think I like, screwed it up? With her? I don’t want her to think I’m mad at her, or that she’s incompetent, or anything…”

“I think that you think you screw up a lot more than you actually do,” says Spinnerella patiently. 

“I mean. I _do,”_ Netossa replies. “Think that I screw up more than I actually do,” she clarifies, before Spin can look at her all worried. 

“I think she _thought_ you were mad at her. Cause you were. She’s definitely not as fervent about this as you are, and it makes sense that’d piss you off.”

“Yeah, I just – “ Netossa huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t even _mad_. Not really. I – I dunno. I’m okay.”

“Hey,” says Spin bracingly. “It’s only day two.”

To be honest, Netossa actually kind of… _envies_ Glimmer? Up there, watching her run around and yell with Bow and Perfuma. It’s not like she’s _carefree,_ that much she made clear when they talked to each other, but things still seem…easier for her. Easier for her to talk to people, to pull their team together. To boost morale and all that important leader stuff. But Netossa knows Glimmer _gets_ it, partially, the trembling that starts in Netossa’s hands if she lets herself think about home for too long. The part of her that still wakes up gasping from ten-year-old nightmares. And that’s something.

Cause…the thing is, Netossa _loves_ Lagoona. It’s like a pull deep in her chest, an ache, a pang whenever she smells rock salt on the air or hears the snap of the waves. The little boats, cutting through the water so smooth that the fish never see them coming, the glittering black cliff faces dotted with saplings and bird nests. The great, winding castle she grew up in, carved into the cliff who knows how long ago, crazy with staircases and secret passages and full up with her family. But that was…all those memories, those were before the…the old Alliance fell. A little more than a decade ago. And she – _they,_ her and Spin, the two of them – haven’t been back in the eight or so years since they left.

Lagoona wasn’t the first to fall, or the one to fall the hardest. (That had to be Bright Moon, Netossa knows. How Glimmer came through that still the fount of energy she is, Netossa won’t ever ask.) But it had been brutal, thousands of soldiers swarming through Netossa’s home, turning it upside down and inside out in a matter of days. And when they were done, and after the lasers and the howls retreated behind Netossa’s eyelids when she was trying to sleep, the castle was quiet. She’d grown up surrounded by aunts and uncles, cousins of some relation, people older than she ever thought possible. But after the Alliance fell…

Well. Her boots on the staircases echoed quite a lot louder. Her parents needed her to help rebuild, her older brothers looked to her as the princess to lead them. But her occasional, well-hidden panic attacks became frequent, then debilitating, as little thing after little thing set her off. And. 

She couldn’t. She _couldn’t._

She broke. Nothing about Lagoona was _home_ anymore. Every hallway was full of ghosts. Every step of her foot on the floor sounded like the pound of a Horde soldier’s boot, every cry of a gull was the screams of her aunt, her cousin, her sister. Didn’t sleep, cause that just meant nightmares. If her eyes could just _stay open_ just for five more minutes, ten, an hour, then she didn’t have to think about anything behind them. Ended up locking herself in her rooms for three weeks. Trying to keep herself awake, and calm, and sane, and…She doesn’t remember most of it, only that Spin came over from her dance school nearby and dragged her out, and the light of the outside hurt her eyes.

She couldn’t _stay._ She couldn’t go _home._ So Netossa and Spinnerella, already clinging tight to each other and devoted in a way that was probably unhealthy, had begged Bright Moon for ambassadorial asylum and fled. And they didn’t look back. 

It’s not _fear._ It’s not like she’s _scared_ to go back. She’s not a coward. And it’s not like there’s no one waiting for her. Her father and one of her mothers both survived, through some stroke of luck, and since she left they’d grown close with and married a woman that Netossa loves as deeply as she does them. _They’d_ been able to rebuild, with Netossa’s older brothers taking on more and more of the responsibilities of the kingdom as their parents grew old, with all Netossa’s tiny nieces and nephews filling the castle, as far as she knew, with something approaching light and life again. So of course she’s not _scared_ to go back. 

It’s just that the flashbacks have started coming back, is all. The helpless terror. 

And if she’s going to lead this little rescue mission, then she _cannot_ let that show. She’s gotta be tough, and detached, and serious, and leaderly. 

Because she’s been very much _acting_ tough and detached and all those – it’s an easy enough façade to retreat behind, and has the added bonus of No One Really Talks To Her. The thing is, if she doesn’t stay tough, she’s going to get _angry._ And _angry_ in her looks like crying, and breaking, and embarrassing herself. So. That’s off the table. 

But! She’s confident, too. These people have the potential to be the strongest team _ever,_ especially with someone like Glimmer or her in the lead. And she’s not _afraid._ She’s…walking. That’s what she is. 

“Hey, Mermista,” she calls, once she pulls herself together a little bit and stops trying not to sniffle into Spin’s cape. “We’ll be approaching Lagoona by water. Let’s talk tactics?” 

* * *

**New messages in **The Only Cool Princesses** _#mod_chat_ ** 

**bowmosexual:** frosta’s right. we can’t get all the way to lagoona without coming up with a plan. that’s a good way to get us all killed 

**OG PRINCESS:** WAIT wait wait one sec okay 

** **OG PRINCESS** has renamed _#mod_chat_ to _#god_chat_ ** 

**OG PRINCESS:** ok yeah 

**bowmosexual:** you’re avoiding the subject. 

**OG PRINCESS:** i told you i cant plan things. not something this big 

**OG PRINCESS:** the only one of us who could have coordinated something like this is GONE. 

* * *

Adora wakes up. 

She’s never held a sword in her life. 

It’s not her first thought. It’s maybe her…sixth. Or, or third, or…all her limbs are heavy as stone. She’s just a stone, falling, falling and turning and…sword, something about a sword. Wake up. 

Stupid fading dream, fading dream, just…just go back to sleep, just, just go… 

_“Adora!”_

Open your eyes. You know that voice. 

“Adora!” Shadow Weaver coos. “Welcome _home!”_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!! please tell me what you think, your opinions mean so much to me and they are what keeps me going!! 
> 
> come hang out with me at [riverpersonn](http://riverpersonn.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!! also if you like found family and politics and brainweirdness, consider checking out my giant in-progress undertale fic, [Risen Up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267280/chapters/25194231) !!!!!!!!! 
> 
> i have this whole thing planned out, but really no idea when i'll be able to get to the next chapter...stay tuned!! :>


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